3 Ways To Cross Promote Your Content And Get More Loyal Readers

So you write superb content on your blog, right? But have you ever asked yourself one simple question, perhaps had a poll hosted to discover…

How Much Of Your Existing Content Visitors Actually Read?

If you do I think you will be amazed! Blogs are known for a problems with presenting older but still relevant content to NEW visitors. You see – when someone arrives to your blog page, they assume that content is dated and in fact, people are used to that older content is holding less relevance!

We all work hard on getting people to our blogs, get people to read what we have to say, get people to participate in conversations and finally – BECOME LOYAL READERS!

Because loyal readers is the group of people that form your core community and help your blog become popular. But if you have actually asked the question I have outlined in the beginning – you might be surprised to learn just HOW MANY new visitors leave your blog either after reading just one page or post or even right away!

It is called Bounce Rate in statistic packages, such as Google Analytics. Just go ahead and take a look at your now!

You do use analytic’s, right?

If not, you might as well stop reading now because you have no clue how people interact with your site or blog anyway!

OK, perhaps I’m being too harsh… go ahead… indulge yourself and read it 😎 but I cannot stress it enough that YOU MUST implement some form of analytic’s on your blog. So lets discuss 3 ways I have personally implemented on this blog to retain MORE of new visitors

1. Related Posts

I use a plugin “Simple Tags”(available in WordPress repository) that does the work for me and presents a list of Related Posts at the end of each blog posts based on tag similarities. Not the most advanced method but it does 2 things for me:

Creates great internal Links structure

Helps people find related posts – get them stay longer on my blog!

See image below:

And yes, I used a bit of custom coding to present the posts in a specific location but your Don’t Have To! Plugin comes with an option to Auto Insert Related posts for you in both – blog content and RSS Feed. Just use it and enjoy!

2. Readers Who Read This Post Also Read

This one is similar in functionality to the first but actually quite a bit different! I use a plugin called “Where did they go from here”(can be found in WordPress repository) and it simply tracks a readers pattern, such as which OTHER posts people before you read after they were done!

See Images Below:

As you can see above – plugin simply tracks post ID’s that other people read and then displays them at the end of post! Simple, effective and based on concept tested and proven to work by Amazon and many others. People love to KNOW what others are doing!

You simply provide what they want!

3. Pushing Your Content Via Sidebar

This one is the most obvious and you can do it by using Latest Posts widget available by default or using one of the custom widgets, such as one that comes with WP-PostViews plugin and allows you to display most popular posts on sidebar!

On this blog I have chosen to take a bit more custom route. If you take a look at my sidebar I have a Tabbed Widget that displays Latest Posts and Last 10 Comments. But because I want to present different option depending on which page a new visitor landed on I did a bit of custom coding.

a) When a person lands on Single Post page – I want to present the list of Last 10 Posts first and have Comments as option, because I want them to be aware of other content available.

b) When a person lands on any other page, such as Home Page, archives or anything else – I want them to see the Last Conversations (Comments) to get them involve deeper into content and go from a Summary Page into a Direct Post Page.

Idea behind that process is EXTREMELY simple – engage people and invite them to read more of my content, get people to participate in conversations and finally – BECOME LOYAL READERS!

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23 Comments

Whenever I visit a blog I try to leave a comment if I do not have to join the site or look for a long time to figure out how to leave the comment. When I do this I am hoping to establish myself as a quality contributor to the blog, and see where that can go.

Leaving quality comments is also a great way to drive traffic to your own blog. Most times they will leave a comment, too. .-= Rocque´s last blog ..Internet Coaches Series ~7 =-.

Thanks a lot Alex for the tutorial. From so many days I was searching plugin “Where did they go from here” and unable to implement in my blog. Now I can install it. It really makes visitor to read more post as I often see all your blog post shown by that plugin. .-= Chandan´s last blog ..15+ Red Hot Tips On Getting FREE Traffic To Your Blog =-.

Hi Alex, Great tips as always. I’m using “Yet Another Related Posts Plugin” is that similar to “Simple Tags”. I like to read what others are saying so your tabbed widget – latest posts/comments is one I visit when I come here. Is there a plugin for that or is it you own creation. Thanks for pointing out “wher did they go from here” plugin. I’ll be installing it. Thanks again Alex .-= Luca Di Nicola´s last blog ..3 Steps to Creating Your Online Sales Funnel Plan =-.

Thanks for another great post. I’ve personally tried the first and third methods and they work quite well. I’ve yet to experiment with “Where did they go from here” plugin. Thanks for reviewing that:D .-= Nami´s last blog ..Watch One Piece Episode 411 English Subbed Online =-.

I’m using options (1) and (3) although I also use (3) to drive traffic to my main site through little mini product reviews in the sidebar. I love the number (2) option too as it’s true we’re always interested to see what other people have done before us so I think I’ll give that a go. Thanks for the info. Cheers, Chloe .-= Chloe Alice Wilson´s last blog ..VTech Kidizoom Digital Camera Review =-.

It’s important people note your recommendations about putting the plugins in the sidebar, Alex. Too often newer marketers for get that you have no say in which page a visitor first encounters your blog – depending on what search term was used at the search engine, or which link they followed from which blog or site, they could hit any one of your pages as their first impression of your blog. .-= Doug Champigny´s last blog ..Free Clickbank Affiliate Marketing Guide =-.

Well writen Blog post! I will check out and test the two plug ins you are talking about, I think they will be useful for me! Go on with the great work! .-= Benjamin Hübner´s last blog ..Bookmarking Services with dofollow tag! =-.

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